Welcome to the Green Scene

Environmental News that's Inspiring and Relevant

Hello!

Welcome to The Green Scene blog. For those of you - like me - who are new to this site, let me introduce myself, and paint you a picture as to what I’ll be covering here at Backpacker.com

My name is Berne Broudy, and generally, the tag writer/photographer/adventurer, pretty much sums me up. I live in Vermont, and I’ve been writing and photographing for Backpacker since the late 1990s beginning when I maligned my sweet and friendly mutt by publishing a ferocious looking picture of her in an article on off leash dogs on the trail for a photo credit.

In the interim I’ve been an editor at Canoe and Kayak and Backcountry, and a contributor to Outside, Women’s Health, Skiing, Popular Science, Vermont Sports and others. Before discovering the wonderful world of writing and photography, I worked on sustainable forestry issues for an international development consulting firm, helped source and supply certified sustainably harvested wood. In fact, I even worked on developing the Forest Stewardship certification (FSC) for wood products that you see everywhere. Want me to keep going? I’ve been a professional photographer for more than a decade, and before that I guided hiking and biking trips all over South America, the eastern U.S. and in France for 10 years. Oh—I also taught yoga for six or so years, including yoga for skiers and other athletes.

Now I’m Backpacker’s Green Editor, I represent Backpacker in the Outdoor Industry Eco Working Group, a group of companies working hard to figure out how to measure the impact of their products on the environment, and I continue to write about green issues in the outdoor industry and beyond.

In the last decade, as an environmental writer, a bunch of my time was spent trying to convince the outdoor industry to use cleaner energy, less chemicals and to make sure they were treating their factory workers well. I made it my mission to tout what evolved companies were doing to lessen their footprint on the world, and to make sure that when a company made claims, it was walking its talk.

Ten years ago, when I’d visit a backpack or tent company and ask about what they were doing to be green, they’d show me everything they made in the color green—no joke. Fortunately (and in many ways unfortunately) things have changed. Now the world is in the midst of a massive environmental crisis that’s affecting everything from the weather on our backpacking trips to the price of gas.

No one asks me if I am looking for green-colored jackets and backpacks anymore.

What do I plan to cover in The Green Scene blog? Everything from what’s in your gear to how global warming is effecting the places you love to hike, to weird and quirky people and events that are trying to solve the climate crisis, protect polar bears and make sure that the moose that Ted Alvarez recently wrote about in The Daily Dirt aren’t gone before the next time you get to the Midwest to hike.

I’ll give you tips about how to lighten your planetary load whether you’re hiking or sorting your trash—and we’ll go deeper than swapping out your lightbulbs. I hope to inspire you, whether it’s to invent the latest, greatest form of clean energy, to spearhead a recycling initiative in your community, or to think about what you’re buying next time you’re at REI or even the grocery store.

So thanks for reading. Expect at least two posts a week, unless I’m on remote backcountry or foreign land assignment where communication is still handled by pony (or elephant) express. And don’t forget to tell me what you think, and what you want to know that I’ve missed or haven’t gotten to yet.

—Berne Broudy

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READERS COMMENTS

Hi Berne,
Nice work with the blog! I work on a weekly outside feature for The Burlington (vt.) Free Press and was wondering if I could profile your work as an environmental blogger. Drop me a line at mehart(at)gannett.com if you are up for it!
cheers, Melissa
Posted: Jan 29, 2009 Melissa Hart

Thanks for your reply regarding Backpacker's inability to use FSC paper. Yes, it's more expensive. Of course. Because the market forces that control it, are magazines like you. But I find your analysis unacceptable for an outdoor magazine. What you're essentially saying is this, "we depend on the outdoors to exist in its natural, beautiful state in order to have a market for our magazine. But, it's too expensive to keep nature looking nice, so we'll cut down any tree along your hiking path we want to tell and sell you a story about hiking in the forest." You say, "we'd have to charge more our cutback elsewhere." THEN DO IT. To me, you've missed the point entirely, which is straight up bizarre for a blogger who introduces his blog buy touting his environmentalist resume. Do you not see the paradox? You don't have your priorities in the right place. Seems to me that a good start in cutting back or 'saving money' is to scrap this green blog, if all you're talking about are ideals you actually do not subscribe to. And I find it extremely disturbing that you champion your 'carbon offsetting' by going with a lighter weight paper. You did this to save money in 'these economically challenging times" and spin it as you greening the magazine. Read your own response-- do you think your readers are imbeciles? That they can't see through such ruse?

Do you factor in in all the trees you cut down for your paper in your 'carbon offset'? Because frankly, if you're using paper that isn't sourced sustainably, you're actually doing three times the damage. You're killing the earth's natural ability to suppress carbon, then manufacturing its resources, and then sending it to magazine shops. That's a trifecta of environmental damage.

Listen, I've read Backpacker for a long time, but will not do so anymore--- I am so sick of companies talking this line, but its much more offensive when you're cutting down my trees to publish your magazine. I see other magazines in your market that can 'afford' sustainable paper, and they're much smaller than you. I can think of ten off hand. But what does a backpacker reader get? Lip service to a serious issue and another person on the backpacker payroll greenwashing.

I'm not satisfied with your answer nor your value system. And beyond that, I think you're making the problem worse by sugar coating and naval gazing. Wake up! It's business models like yours that got us into to these 'tough economic times.' Because they never looked at what the actual cost of doing business is, especially on the environment.
Posted: Jan 20, 2009 reader and activist

To the reader and activist who had the question about FSC paper:

In 2007, when Backpacker joined forces with Climate Cooler, we investigated how we could best reduce out carbon footprint. As part of that process, we looked at FSC certified paper, and here is what we found: it's very expensive and it's in short supply, as is higher recycled content paper. In these economic times, if we switched to FSC certified paper, we'd have to cut back elsewhere or charge more for the magazine. The solution we chose instead: we switched to a lighter weight paper that has the same bulk as the paper we used to use. It's got more loft, like 800 fill down has more loft than 600 fill, but it's lighter, which means that not only do we use less actual material in our paper, but we also save on the carbon cost of shipping Backpacker to news stands, and to you. So it does good for the environment, and for our budget. In fact the savings from our switch in paper allowed us to pay for the carbon analysis we did with Cooler, and to pay for the offsets that we bought last year. The switch in paper, as well as offering a new digital subscription, let us cut our carbon by 12% in just a few months. Do we continue to search for even better solutions? Absolutely.

If you want more information on what Backpacker has done to date, visit http://www.backpacker.com/carbon_neutral_project/articles/12204?page=1 and read about Backpacker's Carbon Neutral Project.
Posted: Jan 16, 2009 Berne Broudy

Please to see such topics being covered. I just hope you cover them correctly, use sound science and you might cover a bit about the arguement against global warming. A good journalist presents both sides of the story. There are already too many liberal rights on the news media. I read Backpacker for enjoyment and education on backpacking/camping and places to go. If I want a newspaper or liberal view on the environment, I'm sure I can find some other magazine to read. Spare me the weird quirky people sections, their usually way out right.
Posted: Jan 15, 2009 Tom

Hey Berne, thanks for all your hard work in the green movement. But isn't it a little odd to blog about how you helped to found the Forest Stewardship Council on Backpacker's website, when Backpacker's print magazine isn't printed on FSC-certified paper?
Posted: Jan 13, 2009 Reader and Activist

Dear Berne, Hello from Scotland. I run a news and information site on environmental issues for winter sports resorts globally at www.saveoursnow.com including a dbase of what the world's top 250 resorts are doing on the issue and posting relevant news stories etc. Lwet me know if you ever need international info or contacts on this issue. Patrick
Posted: Jan 09, 2009 Patrick Thorne

Way to go, Berne!
Posted: Jan 08, 2009 Adrienne